The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) – Office of Skills Development (OSD) has extended application deadlines to March 31 for Wisconsin Fast Forward (WFF) Construction and Small Business Grant Program Announcements (GPAs). Up to $3 million in grant funding is available to Wisconsin employers with customized worker training solutions for construction and small business workers.

The OSD set Construction and Small Business GPAs based on a comprehensive analysis of pressing workforce needs that included skilled worker labor market employment projections and the immediate worker training needs of employers. GPA details follow:

The OSD has developed an effective process that enables businesses to easily apply for grants, ensuring that unemployed trainees are hired and incumbent trainees receive a pay raise. Funding is subject to state budget approval.

During the past four years, Governor Walker’s administration has invested over $200 million of state funding into workforce development, including $30 million in WFF grants to Wisconsin employers for customized skills training to fill current job openings and ongoing skill requirements. DWD has awarded over $18 million in WFF grant contracts to date, supporting nearly 200 worker training projects that are benefitting hundreds of businesses and thousands of workers across the state. View summaries of awarded grant projects here:http://www.wisconsinfastforward.com/reports.htm

Mid-Day Women's Alliance invites you to attend our special Speed Networking event on Wednesday, March 15th, a session that will help hone your abilities in this most crucial skill area - meeting people AND standing out as someone who is memorable.

Put away the idea that this is just for business people - in our personal lives, we come across new people everyday. This session is about getting you comfortable and confident in telling your story, the unique and memorable story about you!

Mid-Day Women's Alliance actively supports learning in this core skill area. Networking, along with Advocacy, Mentoring, Education, and Skill-Building are central to the mission of MDWA, which is to help all women advance to their potential.

At this meeting, attendees will have the opportunity to practice and perfect their elevator speech with others, so please come prepared with your story.

The Speed Networking activity has been organized as a fast-moving, engaging, and most of all, fun event. Please come and join us for this unique learning opportunity!

14 Feb 2017 11:06 AM |
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We are now accepting applications for our annual Sons & Daughters Scholarship!

The Fox Valley SHRM Chapter established the Sons & Daughters Scholarship to recognize the achievements of sons and daughters of a member of the chapter to assist in the furtherance of their education. Award: $1,000Deadline: April 15, 2017

02 Feb 2017 12:25 PM |
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The 2017 Fox Valley Technical College Business Symposium will be held on Friday, March 24, 2017. We are looking for employers to network during the lunch hour with our students from 11:30am – 12:30pm. If you could share what you are looking for in a future employee, a little bit about your business, and personal work experiences with the students, we would greatly appreciate it.

In addition, we are looking for employers to sit on a panel prior to lunch from 10:45am – 11:30am. You will be given questions before this date so you are prepared with your responses. Students will have an opportunity to ask you questions as well!

Please let Terleen know if you are able to have lunch with our students or sit on the panel or we would love to have you for both. Please reach out to Terleen by Friday, February 10th.

19 Jan 2017 11:06 AM |
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Relocate Fox Cities was not able to attend our January SHRM meeting but will be returning as a sponsor for our March meeting. They have an event scheduled for February 22 that they would like us to share with our FVSHRM members. Please refer to their website for more information on what they can offer your Company! https://relocatefoxcities.wordpress.com/about/

The Wellness Council of Wisconsin is seeking presenters to provide leading edge skill building sessions that will engage and energize wellness practitioners at our 27thAnnual Worksite Wellness Conference on September 13, 2017 at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We are seeking industry experts and leaders of best-in-class programs. Speaker proposals will be accepted through February 13, 2017. For additional information, including a list of potential session topics, please followthis link.

This conference gives you the opportunity to position yourself as a leader in the worksite wellness industry and network with over 500 attendees including senior management staff, human resource directors, employee benefit managers, corporate medical staff, wellness team members, and corporate wellness consultants. The Annual Worksite Wellness Conference is a full-day event including inspiring keynotes; engaging breakout sessions; physical activity breaks; networking opportunities; and more! Previous attendees have said, “This is my favorite and best value-added conference each and every year.”

Clickhereto complete and submit your speaker proposal by February 13, 2017. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me atkreiels@wellnesscouncilwi.org.

23 Nov 2016 8:40 AM |
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Just 10 days before the implementation date, a federal judge in Texas put the brakes on the Department of Labor’s (DOL's) new federal overtime rule, which would have doubled the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA’s) salary threshold for exemption from overtime pay.

Twenty-one states filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction in October to halt the rule. They claimed that the DOL exceeded its authority by raising the salary threshold too high and by providing for automatic adjustments to the threshold every three years.

The states’ case was consolidated last month with another lawsuit filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, which raised similar objections to the rule.

The overtime rule was scheduled to take effect Dec. 1 and would have raised the salary threshold from $23,660 to $47,476. The rule also provided for triennial adjustments based on the 40th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census region.

“A preliminary injunction preserves the status quo while the court determines the department’s authority to make the final rule as well as the final rule’s validity,” said Judge Amos Mazzant of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in a Nov. 22 ruling.

“This is a total surprise in many respects, but you have to tip your hat to the judge who made a tough call and hopefully a decision that will stay in place,” said Alfred Robinson Jr., an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Washington, D.C., and a former acting administrator of the DOL's Wage and Hour Division.

What’s Next?

For now, the overtime rule will not take effect as planned Dec. 1, but it could still be implemented later down the road. Employers may continue to follow the existing overtime regulations until a decision is reached.

A preliminary injunction isn’t permanent, as it simply preserves the existing overtime rule—which was last updated in 2004—until the court has a chance to review the merits of the case objecting to the revisions to the regulation.

However, the revised regulation may face an uphill battle: The judge wouldn’t have granted the nationwide preliminary injunction unless, among other things, he thought the states showed a substantial likelihood of succeeding on their claims.

The purpose of the FLSA’s provisions under review in this case “was to exempt from overtime those engaged in executive, administrative and professional capacity duties,” Mazzant said. The salary level was purposefully set low to screen out the obviously nonexempt employees, he added.

Mazzant noted that the DOL “has admitted that it cannot create an evaluation ‘based on salary alone.’ ” However, “this significant increase to the salary level creates essentially a de facto salary-only test,” he said. “If Congress intended the salary requirement to supplant the duties test, then Congress—and not the department—should make that change.”

Robinson mentioned that the DOL will likely challenge the decision.

“We strongly disagree with the decision by the court, which has the effect of delaying a fair day’s pay for a long day’s work for millions of hardworking Americans," the DOL said in a statement. "The department’s overtime rule is the result of a comprehensive, inclusive rulemaking process, and we remain confident in the legality of all aspects of the rule. We are currently considering all of our legal options.”

HR’s Role

Many employers have already either raised exempt employees’ salaries to meet the new threshold or reclassified employees who are still earning less to nonexempt status.

Employers will likely want to leave decisions in place if they have already provided salary increases to employees in order to maintain their exempt status, Robinson said. It would be difficult to take that back.

If there are exempt employees who were going to be reclassified to nonexempt, but haven’t been reclassified yet, Robinson said employers may want to postpone those decisions and give the litigation a chance to play out.

“This should be a welcome sign for employers, even if they’ve already made changes,” he said. “They can at least hold off on further changes.”

Employers shouldn’t assume, however, that the overtime rule will be permanently barred. They should still have a plan to move forward if necessary in the future.

In the meantime, HR professionals will have to consider what to do now.

We will recognize SHRM Learning System Champions at the SHRM Volunteer Leaders' Summit in November.

We encourage you to display the 2016 SHRM Learning System Champion tile ad on your chapter website. Below are two options to utilize the tile ad to promote your status as a SHRM Learning System Champion.

SHRM Certification has strong momentum as we continue to see growth in the number of people who are SHRM certified, employer awareness and job postings citing SHRM certified as preferred or required qualifications, and growth across the country in SHRM chapters promoting SHRM certification to their members. To provide you with an update:

92,000+ people are SHRM certified

53,000+ SHRM-CP professionals

39,000+ SHRM-SCP professionals

We know we couldn't have done this without your support, so thank you for all that you have done to elevate the HR Profession! We appreciate all that you do to support SHRM, the HR Profession and our Education Partners offering SHRM Certification Preparation programs.

Let me know when you have your chapter website updated with the 2016 tile ad - I'd love to see it. Again - Congratulations!